Balance
by Heath07
Summary: Sequel to "Queen of Reasonable". AnnaRyan - Sometimes attraction is too strong to ignore.


Title: Balance

Rating: R -language and sexuality

Author: Heath07

E-mail:

Summary: Sequel to "Queen of Reasonable". Anna/Ryan - Sometimes attraction is too strong to ignore.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Notes: I told myself I was not going to write a sequel... I didn't listen. I'm not big on sequels but even I felt the last fic was incomplete. Thanks to those who replied to the last one and those that continue to reply.

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Ryan had been by every Saturday, since that first time, for two months now and they hadn't done anything more than restore bikes and drink iced tea to wash down the chicken salad sandwiches or turkey wraps or BLT's Anna made for them. BLT's were probably her favourite since Ryan always offered to help. She'd watch him cook the bacon with concentration, his brow furrowed, like it was a complex task. She wanted to laugh about it,but then again, her bacon never came out so crispy without being burned and never tasted quite as good as when Ryan slaved over it, wearing one of those damn wife-beaters he was so fond of. She was really going to have to buy him a shirt or something. Because she was pretty sure staring at the plane of his shoulder and the little ridge on his clavicle was not healthy. 

Some of their time together was in silence. Some not. Sometimes they talked about the weather. Sometimes they talked about Pittsburgh or Chino or places they wanted to go to, like Italy or Prague. Sometimes they talked about Marissa and Seth. Sometimes they talked about school. Well, mostly she talked and he listened with patience unparalleled by anyone she'd ever met. But still, the few words he did offer were always meaningful and would stick with her for a long time.

There was always one thing they made a conscious effort not to talk about. They never talked about what happened that first Saturday. Not one word about how they nearly had sex on top of her father's Lexus or that they both still wanted to... Not on her father's Lexus, but somewhere. Anywhere. Talking about it would make it real and Anna was happy living in The Land of Denial. Everything was peachy and rose-coloured glasses in The Land of Denial. She liked it there.

Mostly, she avoided talking about it because she didn't want to hear Ryan tell her what she all ready knew. He was not going to leave Marissa and, although he was attracted to her, he couldn't give her more than just sex. And she was fine with that. Yep. Fine.

She tried to tell herself it was just a phase. That Ryan was good-looking...okay, fucking gorgeous, and it was just her over-active teenage hormones and imagination, that kept her picturing him in less than innocent ways. She did not want Ryan's mouth anywhere near her. She did not want his hands, his wonderfully calloused hands, anywhere on her body. Nope. She did not want to drag Ryan up to her room and do...things. No way.

Only she did.

And no matter how much she tried to block out that Saturday, it always had a way of sneaking up on her. Especially when Ryan looked at her through hooded blue eyes that just screamed sex.

And it was stupid, really, to be craving Ryan like she was. He could turn out to be like the sugary cereal she'd begged her mom to buy when she was a kid after seeing it advertised on television. After wearing her mother down, she finally bought it. Anna got out a bowl, a spoon, milk and a nice glass of orange juice in preparation. When she took the first bite, she barely tasted it, fearing her mother was going to change her mind and take it away. She swallowed too fast and didn't get any of the flavour. The second bite was slow and savoured and Anna found she didn't really like the taste. It was too sweet and grainy, like sand. Or maybe Ryan would turn out to be like the real functioning doll that she'd wanted when she was ten.Itcould be fed and haveits diapers changed.Anna thought it would be an awesome toy to have. When she finally got it, there was only disappointment. The thing must have been broken because it leaked water all over the place and didn't stop crying. She finally threw it into oncoming traffic and didn't even mind the grounding she got. What was she thinking wanting to deal with that? It had looked better on television and didn't seem nearly as complicated. What if Ryan was like that? What if in the middle of sex, she decided she liked the fantasy more, the idea of Ryan, better?

Yeah, she didn't believe a word of that either. There was no way she could compare sex with Ryan to stupid cereal or a doll that wet itself every five seconds.

Anna would have been perfectly content to stay in The Land of Denial if it weren't for Ryan and his damn nicotine addiction. She wasn't even sure when he'd started smoking again or if he ever really quit in the first place. It was another mystery that she'd probably never get the answer to. She wouldn't risk asking.

She had been careful to avoid looking directly at Ryan. She was operating under the assumption that he couldn't read her if she didn't let him see her eyes and believed that it worked the opposite too. If she didn't have to look at him, she could pretend she didn't know that he wanted her just as deeply as she wanted him. It sounded stupid even to herself but it gave her comfort and allowed her to be around Ryan without doing something that would ruin their 'friendship' forever.

It was late Saturday, just as the sun was going down and the air was beginning to cool, that Anna made the mistake of letting her guard down and gave into the need to look Ryan in the eye.

Ryan's eyes mirrored her own; he looked like he was broken and that meant she was too. It was wrong for him to look so devastatingly sexy at a time like this, when all she wanted was to crawl into herself and forget the world existed, forget about Newport, about curly-haired rich boys and dirty-blondes from Chino with a smoke between blushing lips. And when he offered her the cigarette that rested between thick, calloused fingers, she shouldn't have accepted, but she did. The first puff had her choking and the pressure of his hand on her back and his soothing words in her ear were too much.

She threw the smoke down and crushed it with the heel of her pumps --shoes so impractical for a dirty garage, but she hadn't been able to give up that little fleck of femininity. Ryan was still looking at her and the gentle ease of his fingertips on her back was constant. She ignored the cautionary beats in her chest telling her this was a bad idea, that it would end badly. She ignored the voice in her head that told her they would be betraying Marissa and themselves.

Anna let Ryan kiss her...no, that's not true. That sounded much too complacent and Anna was not the sort of chick that just sat by and let things happen to her. She was stronger than that. At least she had thought she was before Ryan came into her life and blew that notion to shreds. So maybe she allowed herself to be caught up in the moment. And allowed herself to be kissed like some damsel with the same dainty aspiration and ounce of femininity that her shoes afforded her.

Ryan's lips were hot and his mouth tasted like smoke. Did smoke have a taste? Of course it did, but it was too hard to describe. So Ryan tasted like smoke and sweat. And sex, Anna's inner monologue chimed. Now, she knew sex was not a real taste...unless one was talking about oral sex, which she wasn't... But somehow he did taste like sex. Passion. Heat. Energy. He tasted like the kind of sex that comes with a heightened adrenaline rush after a backroom brawl. That 'gotta-have-it-now-sex'. The kind of sex that happens in the backseat of a car, feet pressing against tempered glass, back sticking to vinyl, air thick and cloying. The kind of sex that happens on top of pool tables or counter-tops or dining room tables. The kind of sex that comes after getting dirty and sweaty in a garage all afternoon... The kind of sex a person had with someone else's boyfriend.

Then she remembered they could only kiss in secret where no one would find out just how much they made sense and suddenly she wanted to cry. Pulling away, she stumbled back, put some space between them and got her breath back into her lungs before she looked up at Ryan.

She shook her head, her throat feeling tight. She was on the verge of becoming one of those girls her mother warned her about. One of those sluts that stole other girls' boyfriends. She couldn't bare being that girl. And she knew, with Ryan, she'd always be that girl. Because Marissa had issues and Ryan had a hero complex and there was no room for her. "What are we doing?"

Ryan's eyes turned dark and he settled into his best line of defence. Silence.

"Ryan."

He shrugged, pulling out a pack of smokes and a blue Bic lighter. "I don't know."

"Well, neither do I." Anna brushed the hair from her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. If she didn't, she would knock him to the ground and straddle him and not give a damn who they hurt in the process. "Maybe you really should stop coming by."

"Is that what you want?" His voice was low. Grave.

"No... but it's what has to happen."

Ryan nodded, picked up his jacket --that he always carried and never seemed to wear-- and walked out the door...and, Anna feared, out of her life. Why couldn't she just be one of those girls who threw themselves at the wrong guy and didn't think about the consequences? Why couldn't she just throw herself at Ryan and the next day wake up to an empty bed and forget about it? Maybe because he left and didn't even protest and Anna felt like a fool. A fool that was beginning to care way too much.

Anna thought she had moved past the whole Seth/Summer debacle, but she'd see them in the hall, bickering and kissing and making everyone nauseous with their cute little banter, and, unwillingly, she'd think why couldn't she have that? Why couldn't she be the one that guys looked at like that? And sometimes, she'd catch Ryan's eyes and he'd give her one of those half-smirks, those knowing smiles, that made her stomach flip-flop and her blood run fast and she'd know he was thinking the same thing. Because even though he had Marissa, he still didn't have what Seth and Summer seemed to have...what he had with Anna. And if they gave in, they still wouldn't be able to make-out in the halls and act all cute because they'd have to keep it hidden. A dirty secret.

Seth was predictable and unpredictable at the same time. Predictable in that he would ramble an answer to a question, dissecting minuscule reactions and making it into some grand thing. Unpredictable in that what he said --rambled-- was not scripted, anything could come out of that mouth of his.

So his reaction to sex shouldn't have been much different and it wasn't.He was predictably unpredictable. He'd actually told Anna that he and Summer had slept together and he didn't even think that she would have a problem with it. Of course she acted like everything was okay. She wasn't okay, though. Not that she wanted to have sex with Seth. Two months ago, before her weekly visits with Ryan, maybe she would have, but not anymore. There was only one person she thought about having sex with these days and his name was not Seth Cohen. But it had bothered her because it made her seem so insignificant. Everyone was having sex around her and no one seemed to mind sharing. She didn't care if Seth was 'good for a first-timer'. And she really didn't need to hear Marissa go on and on ad nauseam about how 'great' and 'skilled' Ryan was, because, really, all Anna wanted to do was ask if she could borrow him for a night... or two, and find out for herself. And she knew it was wrong.

She needed to stay away from Ryan...

That resolve lasted two weeks. Two weeks and she was already missing his presence, looking up with hope every time someone entered the garage, wishing it was Ryan. She was destined to be the girl that no one wanted to love but wanted to fuck...and she was fine with it. Well, not fine with it, but she'd accepted it. Accepted it because she wanted Ryan and it wasn't going to go away.

Her mother had told her once, in Pittsburgh, a month after she'd lost her virginity at a party and her mother had found her diary, that she wouldn't have a 'loose' daughter. Her mother had said she was disappointed and hurt that Anna would be so irresponsible. Anna took her punishment and didn't even backtalk, not even to say she was the last person she knew to lose her virginity and it wasn't even that good anyway. Now though, when her mother stopped by her room before bed and asked what happened to that 'nice young man'that used to come by, Anna turned up her stereo and told her mother to mind her own business.

At school, she avoided being near Ryan as best she could. She went on a date with some jock, Roger or Rick, or something that began with an R...someone that wasn't Ryan, but it didn't work. It was just a placebo to quell the need for Ryan in all his wife-beater-wearing, chain-smoking, smoldering-stare glory.

Anna discovered there was something about the middle of the night that got a person's mind going. It was probably why all those infomercial's aired so late. She hadn't slept well in days. The only thing keeping her upright was an I.V. drip of caffeine and even that was starting to wane. She didn't know how much longer she could take watching a knife cut into every possible material before she ordered one to see how well it worked on human flesh. She'd convinced herself during the day that she would not go to Ryan. No matter what. But at night, with nothing else but her thoughts to occupy her time, convincing herself it was a bad idea was near impossible. And, on the fourteenth day of her standoff, she made the decision that she'd rather die with a scarlet letter on her chest than with a knife sticking out of her heart and her loins cold.

It was two-thirty a.m. when she found herself standing outside the Cohens' pool house door. The light was on. Drapes, she'd never seen before, were drawn. She wondered for a split-second if Marissa might be there and was about to turn back when the door opened and Ryan appeared. Anna took a long, deep breath. Ryan was without his constant companion --not Seth, the other one-- his wife-beater. The button of his jeans was undone and a cigarette was presently being squashed between his lips.

"An-na?" he said and it came out distorted.

"Uh, hi." Now what? She hadn't planned this far ahead.

Ryan looked at her curiously, before stepping aside, grabbing her by the upper arm and shoving her into the pool house. Anna didn't so much mind being manhandled as she did being thrown against the glass panel of the wall and getting a shock of cold against her back.

"What the fuck?"

Ryan took the cigarette from his mouth and shoved it into his pocket, effectively rendering it un-smokable. He pressed his finger to his lips and his eyes crinkled in the corners apologetically. Ryan's arm went around her side as he hit the lights, bathing the room in darkness. Anna strained in the dark, caught his eye against the moonlight and looked at him strangely before she turned around and noticed the light in the kitchen go on.

Her mouth parted and she nodded, remaining quiet. Ryan's eyes remained fixed on the kitchen doors, not noticing or not minding that his forearm was still pressed against Anna's side. It also probably escaped him that he was half-naked and smelling like clean soap. Well, like soap. Clean implicit. And he probably didn't notice that his thumb was right against her bare midriff and every time she breathed, it rubbed against her and made her shiver.

She looked over her shoulder and saw Sandy emerging from the refrigerator, trying not to notice the way Ryan's breath felt warm against her neck and cheek. Mrs. Cohen appeared at her husband's side and they kissed...passionately. Anna cringed. Even Seth's parents were getting more action than she was.And, by the container of whip cream in Mr. Cohen's hand, it seemed they were far kinkier than she would have expected...or they were just having some late night dessert. That worked better for her sensibilities than hot monkey sex. She rolled her eyes and shook her head. She was jealous of an old married couple! Not that they were old...well, at least not compared to her parents who slept in separate beds and were asleep promptly at ten o'clock every night.

God, if she ever turned into her parents... Ugh, scary thought.She'd rather join a monastery than turn into her mother.

While her thoughts had spiralled out of control, Ryan had taken notice of his thumb and had moved his hand so that it rested flat against Anna's toned stomach. They both knew why she was there. She looked down and watched it move steadily upward until it disappeared under her shirt and she could feel him tugging at the clasp of her bra. She let out a little startled gasp when he unhooked it with just the one hand with ease.

"Impressive," she mouthed and gave him a smile.

Ryan raised an eyebrow and tilted his head to the side, giving her a 'did you expect anything less?' smirk.

His lips were red and his eyes took on the colour of the Orient as he continued to stare at her, unblinking. His tongue swept over his bottom lip, his eyes lost contact and then his fingers began to inch upward. A draught of air worked it's way to her lungs. He swallowed it with his mouth.

There was an odd tenderness to the way he touched her and it threw her off at first. She pulled back and gripped the back of his neck, tangling her fingers in stray wisps of his hair and yanking sharply. If they were going to do this, there was going to be nothing half-ass about it. "Don't," she warned, "I'm not Marissa and I'm not a doll. I won't break."

Gray eyes stared back at her, hardened. Jaw gritted, chin jutted out, he cupped her face. "I know," he whispered and then kissed her hard. It was bruising and she could feel hints of stubble against her chin and in the gap between her nose and lips, sharp little jabs made rougher by his pliable mouth.

Warmth filled her fingertips everywhere she touched him...his shoulders...his biceps...his chest...his back. God, his back. How long she had thought about just touching like this, just bare skin and warmth. Days. Weeks. Months. She pulled back, breathing in roughly, her mouth feeling tingly and overworked, but she didn't care. Darting out her tongue, she sampled the skin of his neck, sucked at his pulse point and felt it jump. His body curved into hers, pressing her into the glass, but she didn't mind. Wouldn't have minded even if it gave way and tumbled them outside onto the wet grass.

He was so fucking gorgeous. So incredibly fucking gorgeous she couldn't take it. She stepped back to drink him in. The ruffled mess of his hair made him look young again and she could picture him once again as that little boy that wasn't quite so jaded yet. All she wanted to do was erase the soiled rage that sprang from his eyes; to take away the pain and burdens, just for the moment.

Ryan's eyes remained locked on Anna's as the pad of his thumb slid over her nipple. She bit her lip. He smiled and did it again.

"Ryan," she said and she wasn't sure why; whether she wanted him to stop or was scolding him for being a tease.

Laughter was coming from the house. She turned to look but Ryan's hand came to her cheek and angled her head so he could kiss her, all the while lightly skimming her nipple with his rough skin. She arched her back, trying to make better contact and she could feel Ryan smile into the kiss.

Her hand left his back, trailed over his ass to the front of his undone zipper-fly jeans. Pulling the zipper down slow, she smiled to herself when he pushed against her hand and... stopped.

"What? What is it?" she asked, watching as he put space between them. And then she heard it too. Seth. Seth's voice babbling on and on, only Anna couldn't make out the words. She strained to hear, satisfied that the Cohen's were still in the kitchen and not coming out to the pool house.

It felt like she couldn't breath, her chest ached with something deeper than guilt. Because she didn't feel guilty.She only felt angry. Seth was not going to ruin this for her. Drowning him out, she pulled the loop of Ryan's jeans and pressed herself against him again. The lights in the kitchen went out and it seemed to help with the illusion that they could do this with each other as if there was no one else in their heads or hearts. Her thighs rubbed against the rugged denim, her skirt riding high on her stockingless legs.

Leaning down the few inches he had on her, Ryan looked lost. All at once she sympathized and didn't care. She twisted and squirmed and made little keening noises until she felt her cheeks get hot and her body flush and burn. She was right there, on the cusp...and then she toppled over. She felt dizzy. Cold.

Anna relied on Ryan to keep her upright- considering her legs felt like they couldn't hold up an ant at that point.

"Let's go to the bed," she suggested, licking the juncture between his throat and collarbone.

"We shouldn't," he said, his voice coated with self-loathing.

"What do you want Ryan?" She knew what he wanted. Could feel between his legs what he wanted.

"What about you?" His concern for her was touching. Really. Especially since he seemed undaunted by the fact that she'd just used him as a scratching post. But right then she didn't care about what happened later, she just wanted him and needed to hear him say he wanted her too. At least for the night. The rest she would have to deal with later.

"This isn't about me or what I want...we both know what I want. And if I get hurt... I'll deal with it. I know what I'm getting myself into. I'm talking about you -- and don't' say Marissa because we both know that's a lie. She's not your mother and you can't save her. You need her to make yourself feel needed."

"It's not like that," he tried to protest.

"I don't care. Lie to her. Lie to yourself. Right now, I don't care. Tell me, Ryan. Tell me the selfish answer. What. Do. You. Want?"

"Anna."

"Don't. You're seventeen, Ryan, you're allowed to be selfish. Now tell me what you want." And she knew it was cheesy and cliched and didn't really give a damn as long as he gave her the right answer.

"You." Good boy. She always knew he was smart.

"Good," she said and reached out, locking the door.

Everything about Ryan was underlined with scandal. Ryan was not the 'nice young man' her mother expected. Ryan couldn't be young, he was far too experienced in life to ever be considered that. And nice? Ryan could be nice when he wanted, but she didn't want him nice. She wanted him the way he might have been in Chino, when he had to fight to survive and fuck because there were no needy girls like Marissa there who wanted to make love. Ryan wasn't the sort of guy a girl made love to. Ryan was the sort of guy that made you a woman. The kind of guy that taught a girl how to let go and not to be afraid or modest or ashamed.

She wanted Ryan to be that guy with her because there was nothing scandalous about her or her family, except that they came from Pittsburgh, and she'd always been so bloody proper and safe. That was about to change. Maybe she was one of those girls, those 'loose' girls her mother begged her not to become, one of those sluts that had their names in bathrooms and gave good head...and maybe she didn't care, maybe it was just who she was...or maybe her mother was old fashioned. Pittsburgh was not like Newport. Chino was not like Newport. Maybe together Ryan and Anna could find a balance together.

She looked down at the ground, noticed his bare feet and then her eyes caught the glint of red from his knuckles. "What happened to your hand?"

Looking down, he made a fist, flexed his fingers and dropped his hand to the side. "Uh, it's nothing."

"Ryan."

He looked out the window, straining in the dark, his face scrunched up like he was ashamed. "I punched a wall."

"Oh." She picked up his hand and proceeded to kiss all the tiny nicks and cuts in his otherwise flawless -but rough- skin. "Feel better?"

Ryan nodded, his eyes silver in the moonlight -which reminded her of Werewolves and silver bullets for some reason and she wanted to cringe for how her thought processes worked almost exactly like Seth's.

He picked her up like she weighed nothing and walked them over to his unmade made. She kicked off her shoes with a little laugh. A bed in general was a sexy thing considering what it implied. When people said things like 'let's go to bed', it really meant, 'let's go have sex', or even things more vulgar than that, but sex things nonetheless. So, yeah, a bed was a sexy thing, but an unmade bed was always sexier than a made one.Her friend, Carrie, had explained that to her once. An unmade bed meant that someone had been in it recently, while you couldn't always be sure of that with a made one. She had humoured her friend and stored that information away. It wasn't so odd that it popped up now because looking at Ryan's unmade bed made her cheeks flush and her toes tingle. Ryan had slept in this bed and now she and Ryan were going to...

Setting her down, he covered her body with his own and she could feel him pressing into her thigh. It started the burn in her body again and she arched up, getting closer.

Her body was thin and lean, more like a young boy than a woman, but Ryan didn't seem to notice as he raised her up and pulled her shirt over her head, pulled her bra off her shoulders and kissed his way down the valley of her breasts, sucking a nipple into his hot mouth and then trading it for the other. Anna ached beneath him. His fingers were heaven, but his tongue...his tongue was sacrilege. So fucking brutal and brilliant it made her want to cry or pray, she wasn't sure which.

Her hands shook a little when she pulled the denim of his jeans and cotton of his boxer-briefs past his thighs. If he noticed, he didn't comment as he kicked them the rest of the way off and let them land on the floor. There was no hesitation when he pulled her skirt from her waist and slid her panties down her toned legs.

Ryan had that look in his eyes again. That one he had when she first met him at the Debutante ball. That 'Fuck the World' look she'd admired so much and had watched slowly recede as Marissa's problems began to weigh him down. It was back and it was beautiful. And she wished it would last forever...or at least for the night...at least while he was fucking her. They could fuck the world together. It was almost poetic. Almost.

Groping around under the pillows above her head, Ryan produced a condom and it all became real. If an unmade bed was sexy for all that was insinuated with it, then a condom was just as guilty. A condom's very nature and function was to cover an erection. A person couldn't look at a condom and not think of all the things it implied, at least Anna couldn't. Pushing aside the safety factor and all that, ( 'cause who's really thinking about diseases and shit when they're about to get some?) condoms were sexy. She watched with fascination as Ryan rolled the condom on and then moved back to her, securely nestled between her legs.

He looked Anna in the eye and she sensed his hesitation, sensed that he was too trained from Marissa and too scared to have what he wanted to make it anything but tender and lovely and sappily sweet.

Her hand wrapped around his neck, pulling him down for a hard kiss, nipping his bottom lip and pulling back. "I won't break," Anna reassured him for the second time that night and smiled.

Then he was plunging into her and notions of sweet and tender and easy vanished as her hips spiked and a cry-moan escaped her throat. Their eyes locked and they were getting deep inside each other where they didn't belong, where they weren't supposed to fit. His tongue worked her mouth open and delved into her spicy heat, mimicking his thrusts.

Their bodies worked together like they worked on motorcycles. He moved fast, with no abandon, pushing and expelling and gaining momentum. Slick. Sharp. Powerful. She worked slow, steadily shifting into second gear, feeling her body tense, her senses come alive. Burying her face against his shoulder, she took solace in the heat and sweat, wrapping her legs around his calves as he hit the exact right spot, again and again until her fingers were pressing into the cheeks of his ass and her body convulsed under him. She reached a plateau that was higher than the feeling she got with the wind on her face and a bike wrapped between her legs. Ryan was by far a better ride than any Harley.

Once, twice, three more times and he was shuddering and then collapsed against her, spent. It took him a moment to compose himself and another few seconds to get the energy to raise himself on his elbows. He kissed her neck and whispered something she couldn't quite make out and wasn't sure she wanted to ask him to repeat. Ryan didn't do the whole 'love' thing. Right? Her stomach dropped. She couldn't look at him. Wouldn't. Not now. She turned her head. He left her body and she cursed herself for feeling so empty.

He stood and she heard him pad over to the bathroom, listening to the toilet flush. The condom wasn't so sexy any more, but that didn't matter because Anna didn't need to be having sexy thoughts now... now all she needed was sleep and a good long cry.

Feeling the bed shift, she forced herself to look at him. Ryan's eyes were a light, post-coital grey-flecked blue when he looked at her lazily through his eyelashes. They stared at each other for a long time and Anna knew it was worse than she feared. Worse because no matter how much she told herself it was just sex, that it didn't matter to either of them, she knew, at least some part of it -if not all- was a lie.

"Stay?" he said and pulled her against the warmth of his side. Ryan looked sad when he said that. Puppy dog sad. It wasn't like him to be so open with his emotions. At that moment Anna knew he understood.

"Okay," she agreed and closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to look at him anymore. If she did, she would stay.

Anna waited until Ryan was asleep to dress and slipped quietly out the door. It was better that way; better than awkward silences and terse apologies and watching the guilt overcome Ryan's face. It was better to leave while she still had some dignity and could preserve what they had shared without all the blame and repercussions. Ryan would never leave Marissa and she didn't want to listen as he tried to justify it.

Anna wanted to remember Ryan as someone she had almost loved, not as someone she felt sorry for.

* * *

end. 


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